1000 Year Old Hebrew Poetry from Spain. Slightly Nichey, But Awesome

Selected Poems of Shmuel Hanagid by Shmuel HaNagid
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's amazing to read poetry of a thousand years ago and understand a little about the man who wrote it. Shmuel HaNagid was a complex man--a military man who led forces into war, a political figure offering advice to the king of Cordoba, a drinker and lover of wine, an educated religious man, and more. He had his contradictions, which all real people do, and they make him seem very real on the page, like someone you could meet if not for all those years separating us.

He shows a great respect for and knowledge of Talmud and Hebrew scripture, but also a sense of morality that goes beyond study. Here's a quatrain that hints at that sensitivity:

If you shame a man for the flaws he shows you
but keeps well-hidden from others,
how could your heart not likewise disgrace you
for the flaws of your own that you'd smother?

Some of his most poignant poems deal with the death of family members and growing old ("Aging's grief has set/ in my heart a flaming fire/ whose tongue makes ash of my hair./ Weakness has wakened the pain in my knees,/ and I struggle now even at court,/ on level ground..."), finding that he can't march and fight like he once did, facing his own mortality ("...the terrors of time assault him,/ when a man passes sixty;/ till seventy then he sighs with age, and seems to be saintly;/ but time surrounds him at eighty,/ trapped in the fowler's snare..."). The poet succeeds--with the translator--in putting his humanity into his lines so that a reader of a different age and different world in every way could still understand and feel what he is feeling.

A piece from "On the death of Isaac, his brother":

They said:
"He has taken him up."

And I thought;
"Let Him take me instead."

And they said: "Time will
heal your hurt and you'll rest."

And I answered in pain:

"On your balm of time
and all rest beyond
my brother--a curse!

Take, My Strength, my soul-
for grief such as this it can't carry."

Such hyperbole, especially coming from a man who quotes scripture and is deeply convicted in his religious belief, is particularly affecting. That's true grief.

I wanted to read this to get a feel for Muslim Spain, especially the interactions among people of different faiths. There's a lot to pick over here. I will need to read it again and again to see if I've caught on to even a small part of it. The notes at the back are helpful--I only wish they were alongside the text to make reference easier, though I suppose that would detract from the esthetic of the poetry. I find the translation quite clear and well done; it's the figurative language and embedded cultural details and allusions to Torah that make real understanding tricky.

For those with an interest similar to mine, I of course recommend this volume. I expected to find it illuminating, but was surprised to find it touching.

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